I had to import mine because I don't think he ever made it to Blighty officially, but I do remember him being hard to find at the time I went looking. I still paid around normal UK retail price for him though, including the import cost.

As for why he's such a big deal, I guess as was said earlier that he's got that connectivity with Optimus which gives him more play value and 'cool' factor. Wing Saber's robot mode on it's own is weirdly proportioned and kind of a brick, so I doubt he's valued highly based on that. But he does have that Star Saber homage thing going on, so maybe that adds an appeal to him.

Wingsaber was a later run Energon figure in a price point larger than deluxe. That made him an incredibly hard figure to find, as both the megas and, to a lesser extent, ultras had to deal with a lot of shelfwarmers keeping new product off the shelves. Personally, I only saw Wingsaber twice in stores. So yeah, rarity definitely has something to do with his price.

There just aren't a lot of him up on eBay either, Energon or Superlink variety.

A lot of toys from around that time period are effectively 'drying up' at this point and becoming actual "collectables". Pick out a reasonably popular toy or character from that era and watch for them on eBay over a month or so, especially the Japanese releases. Galvatron G or Megazarak for instance...you won't really find them at acceptable prices.

He's one of the few TFs I have out on permanent display. Many others come along, display for a while, and then go into storage when lack of space reaches critical mass, but this guy always seems to manage to stay out on display.

Wingsaber was a later run Energon figure in a price point larger than deluxe. That made him an incredibly hard figure to find, as both the megas and, to a lesser extent, ultras had to deal with a lot of shelfwarmers keeping new product off the shelves. Personally, I only saw Wingsaber twice in stores. So yeah, rarity definitely has something to do with his price.

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Absolutely. I was lucky to see him ONCE - on clearance at KB Toys after Cybertron had already started. They must've gotten in a late shipment, or had just cleared out their stock room or something.

That was probably the only good haul day I ever had there, they also had Energon Quickstrike and Galvatron and a few of the combiner limbs, the only time I saw any of those at retail as well.